Navigation menu

Menu

How To Run A Successful Dyslexia Pilot Program

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Last Spring, I received an email from Mindy Bramer, an educational consultant for PaTTAN, (Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network). The state of Pennsylvania had just become one of the first states to initiate a ground-breaking, dyslexia pilot program that was backed by state legislation.

"Act 69 of 2014, the Dyslexia and Early Literacy Intervention Pilot Program became effective on June 26, 2014.The Act provides that: Pennsylvania
Department of Education (PDE) will establish an early literacy intervention and
dyslexia pilot program to provide evidence-based early screening using
evidence-based intervention services for students with potential risk factors
for early reading deficiencies and dyslexia, such as low phonemic awareness,
low letter and symbol naming and inability to remember sequences."

Mindy had reached out to me by asking me to assist in the Dyslexia and Early Literacy Intervention Pilot Program with writing connected reading passages for the second grade teachers and support staff to use with their students. I was THRILLED to help Pennsylvania get this initiative off the ground and help their students! Starting in April, 2017 until October, 2017, I wrote and published three sets of non-fiction decodable passages for the pilot. The eight participating school districts in the pilot use them in their classrooms.

After the pilot got off the ground, I was eager to shine a spotlight on this amazing program, in hopes that parents and educators from other states might want to begin a pilot program of their own. It can be done successfully! Mindy graciously agreed to complete a set of interview questions for me, which I am sharing with you today. If you have any questions about my part in the pilot or the pilot itself, feel free to email me or comment below. Thank you!

Parents. Parents were the ones
that initiated and worked on the legislation. Diane Reott and Daphne Uliana,
parents of children with dyslexia were the main impetus for the legislation.

What was the process
like getting legislation at the state level for the pilot? What were the steps
involved?

The parents worked with the legislators in both the House and Senate to
enlist their support and gain sponsors for the legislation. There were several champions within the
Legislature who developed it as a bipartisan bill, focused on helping
children.

How long did it take
for the legislation go through?

Approximately one year

How has the pilot been
structured for schools and classrooms?

The pilot is structured
to address both the classroom and individual student level through core
instruction and intensive intervention based on student needs. All K-2 classrooms in a school building
participate in the pilot.

What training are you
offering for teachers?

Training is provided for classroom teachers and interventionists. Interventionists are the identified staff who
receives additional training in multisensory structured literacy (MSL). Interventionists
may be reading specialists, speech/language pathologists, general and special
education teachers.

The
goals of the classroom training were to deepen knowledge and skills of the
essential components of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics,
vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and oral language), to integrate
multisensory structured language/literacy (MSL) methods into the core, and to
build explicit, direct, sequential, systematic instruction practices into the
classroom. The training series was based
on the recommendations of the National Reading Panel (2000) National Early
Literacy Panel (2008), National Research Council (1998), Adams (1990), Foorman
et al. (2016), and Shanahan et al., (2010).

How is it going? Do
you have any data on student performance or anecdotal information from teachers
you could share?

The second year has been completed and it is going well because of the
work of the classroom teachers, interventionists, and administrators in the
pilot schools. They have committed to
improving reading instruction practices and student results. We have DIBELS Next data that demonstrates
improved results as well as anecdotal information from teachers, parents, and
administrators. (A one page summary is
attached. COMING SOON. Please check back.)

The districts that participated are making local plans for continuing and
sustaining the gains they made.
Replication plans are available for districts that wish to develop
programs based on the pilot. The state may choose to provide further support to
the existing pilots and/or expand the pilots to other districts, but that has
not been determined.

What advice could you
offer for any state or school district looking to begin a similar pilot
program?

Make sure that if you
do intend to offer a pilot program, one works with committed people to its
success because there are too many obstacles and barriers to implementation
without having people involved that do not believe in or want the program to be
successful.

My name is Emily. I am a mom of four, and an educator who loves creating and blogging about all things literacy! As an Orton-Gillingham instructor, I seek to find and create resources to assist children with dyslexia. Thank you for stopping by my blog today!